Introduction:

Spain’s reported announcement that it will allow a boat to dock carrying hundreds of migrants and refugees that was originally turned away from Italy is a “generous display of solidarity”, the UN Refugee Agency said on Monday.

Pregnant women and unaccompanied children are among the more than 600 people on board the Aquarius rescue vessel which picked them up  after they had set out from the North African coastline, reportedly on inflatable rafts.

So far this year, more than 600 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach mainland Europe, UNHCR spokesperson Charlie Yaxley told Daniel Johnson.